Joshua Santospirito is a musician and a visual artist. He grew up in suburban Melbourne, has lived in Sydney, Alice Springs and Hobart; where he now lives with his wife Nadine Kessler. Graphic narratives and sequential art are the main focus of his visual art practice and often revolve around the psychological and visceral experience of geography, place and culture. Santospirito has also worked in mental health as a nurse for a decade in Central Australian Aboriginal communities and in Hobart, Tasmania. In 2013 he and Kessler started San Kessto Publications together to publish both graphic novels and design related books.

Joshua Santospirito’s Arts Forum presentation will reflect on the RIDICULOUS trials and tribulations of adapting prose into the medium of comics, the mechanics of both mediums and the the headaches involved. Hard work.

"The Long Weekend in Alice Springs" is an award-winning graphic novel adapted by Santospirito, from a complex but beautiful academic essay by Alice Springs-based psychologist Craig San Roque. Published in 2013, and originally launched at the Tasmanian Writers Festival, it has sold remarkably well since then and looks set to develop a cult following across Australia.